Reviews for The Penguin best Australian short stories

The average rating for The Penguin best Australian short stories based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-03-20 00:00:00 Master Young 2009 bookcrossing journal: I have been reading this book on and off for the last few months. Not that it is a bad book, just that you can't get stuck into short stories the same way as a novel, and I would read one story now and then and enjoy the stories. I guess like all collections of stories, you like some more than others. This was an interesting collection though, as it kind of took you through over 100 years of Australian history. The collection was published in 1998, and the earliest story in it was written in 1859. The stories start off in the countryside, and gradually move into more urban areas as time moves on. I liked some of the old stories and some of the new, but over all I probably enjoyed the stories from the 1800s more. There was a Henry Lawson story in there, and I really like his writing. I read a collection of his stories the other year. So bad in the beginnings, when it was pioneering times, life was rough and tough, and men were men and the women were sometimes shocked by them... "Never had she seen anything so grotesquely monkeyish." (p165 - Barbara Baynton). That line made me laugh when I read it, so I thought I had to write it down somewhere for posterity! The story "Pretty Dick" was really good for creating the atmosphere of the bush and the outback; and I liked the story "The Golden Shanty" about this Irishman who owed this hotel that was in the middle of nowhere and falling to bits, then suddenly gets a lot of customers from the new Chinese camp... except they start stealing the bricks his hotel is built of. There's also a strong theme of immigration throughout this book, and there are characters of all kinds of nationalities appearing in the stories. Some of the modern ones feel like they are trying to be a bit clever sometimes; the story "The Train" is really quite dark... oh, and because this is a book about Australia, there is a short story called "Neighbours"... everybody needs good neighbours... but it's not set on Ramsey Street. I have another book of short stories by Australian writers kicking around somewhere. I shall have to dig that one out sometime.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-09-08 00:00:00 Harold Smith Presented in chronological order from 1859 to modern day, this Australian collection provides insight into the issues and concerns of their period. Unlike many modern writers, most of these early writers do not feel the need to provide a "surprise" ending, but rather let the story stand alone. That is enough to commend them as far as I'm concerned.